A neighborhood electric vehicle (NEV) is a battery powered, speed limited, street legal vehicle that should not go above 25 miles per hour. One objective of the United States Department of Transportation (USDOT) is to allow the creation of local transportation within communities those are connected via inter-community high speed transit methods, such as railways, that can help minimize many transportation, emission and energy problems. Today, NEV models are commercially available, serving civilian to military needs.
Lessons learned in automobile industry for last one hundred years may be used to guide the development of NEV for today's needs. In order NEV to be popular and competitive in the long run, several criterions should be met. These include a) appeal to user, b) feel and comfort, c) energy efficiency, d) low cost, e) upgradeable, and f) easy to repair. A new NEV should appeal to users and make users feel like they are in a different time. Gasoline power scooters have been around for many decades but never became popular as a neighborhood vehicle. Feel and comfort can influence how often a NEV is used. Frequent use of NEV means less reliance of fossil fuels. Users tend to use device with quick response and some feedback. A quiet, fast responding electric motor based drive systems can make users feel differently compared to ICE based vehicles. However, to obtain a good response the placement of motor and motor type should be analyzed carefully. Energy Efficiency should be a design consideration of a NEV if the USDOT recommended 30 miles range per charge is to be achieved. Mechanical and electronic systems should be scrutinized to get rid of the waste. Range can be increased by increasing battery size, but the additional weight and cost can become a problem. One challenge is to use the stored energy in batteries efficiently. NEVs are for short distance commutes, and for long commutes another vehicle or use of mass transit may be preferable. Therefore, the cost of a NEV should be kept as cheap as possible. Finally repair and maintenance of NEV should be simple enough for it to be performed by users.
What is needed is a neighborhood electric vehicle that provides efficient conversion of electricity generated during braking to the charging of a capacitor, or to the driving of a motor. Various embodiments of the present invention described herein do this in novel and unobvious ways.